18 vs 29 – Episode 5

A little bit of skinship, a frission of attraction and a whole bunch of misunderstandings. Still, things are sorta kinda progressing with our main couple.

Episode 5

Hye-chan catches Sang-young and Ji-young on the beach together. Ji-young makes a hasty exit while the couple head back to their room. Sang-young unlocks the door and moves to leave, but Hye-chan offers to let him stay with the excuse of avoiding scandal. He is thrilled, but acts casually and starts shucking off his clothes in the main area. Hye-chan chases him into the bathroom, then sits back and wonders if Ji-young was planning a romantic tryst with her husband on the trip. He is in bed, wondering how to reach his wife to help her remember their marriage, and the two of them spend a sleepless night.

At breakfast the next morning, Hye-chan’s jealous nature makes an awkward mess; Ji-young’s knowledge of his food preferences doesn’t help, and Hye-chan glowers while she eats. She imagines everything from longing glances to footsie under the table, and decides to feign a headache to pull him away from the table. He leaves her in the hotel room and heads for the shoot.

It’s the waltz in the sand scene again. Hye-chan sneaks down with the ahjumma fans on the periphery, and feels discouraged when they chatter shipping comments between the two actors. She ends up walking alone down the beach, while Sang-young strains to see her over the other people.

On the beach, Hye-chan is surrounded by couples in matching outfits.

As she thinks about her feelings now and her 18-year-old self, she wonders if she as more mature when she was younger. Meanwhile, a group of high school girls asks for her assistance, and she goes off them trying to find this location.

On the set, it is finally completed, but Manager Ahn grabs Sang-young before he can go look for Hye-chan. It seems there’s problems at the series set, and the director wants his stars back ASAP. Sang-young wanted the extra day to spend with Hye-chan in Busan, but Manager Ahn is insistent they leave immediately.

Kim Noon sends Hye-chan a test asking how her waltz practicing is going. The Stalker Girls needle him about being friends with an ahjumma. After leaving the tutoring academy, he gets stopped by Hye-won, who warns him that his grades are falling and to avoid high school girls, “because in college you can meet girls like her.

Hye-chan is squiring the Japanese high school students along the waterfront, when she gets a flashback of her life. It appears Sang-young and had visited the Little Mermaid statue in the harbor before.

Sang-young repeatedly tries to call her as Manager Ahn and Ji-young wait to be transported to the hospital. He finally gets through on her phone, only to hear her scream as the phone goes dead. He runs out of the hotel intent on looking for her, finally ending up at the statue. We now see what Hye-chan was only partially remembering: Bong-man had brought her here to propose, but fell into the water chasing her errant scarf, and she cryingly confessed to him after pulling him from the water.

Manager Ahn finds him at the statue and tries to get him to head for the airport, citing the Director’s temper and the problems that have already cropped up on the set. While they are arguing, his phone rings with Hye-chan’s number, and he takes off after her.

Turns out she spent the day at an amusement park and lost her phone on a ride. The high school girls are thrilled to see an idol. He angrily asks her why she can’t act in a mature manner and pulls her away. He takes her to the statue, but she tells him she doesn’t remember anything.

At the airport, they try to get on the next available flight, but Sang-young doesn’t reach the production set until late, and the Director is in a tizzy. He yells at him for a while, and threatens to write him out of the script. Ji-young observes the smack-down from her car.

Hye-chan is sitting at home, wondering if he got in trouble, but then decides to look at her camcorder footage from Busan. She starts looking around the office and finds a red laptop computer in one of the desk drawers. Sang-young comes home, looking exhausted, but denies any problems. She asks him about the laptop, and together they try to figure out her password.

While Hye-chan is out of the room to anwer a phone call, Sang-young discovers the password is his birthday. As he reads the files, though, he finds out that the laptop contains her diary, and the last entry is the day of the accident. He reads in growing alarm that she saw him carry Ji-young to the actress’ apartment, and her strong belief that they were having an affair, and attempts to remove the entry. He is interrupted by a returning Hye-chan. He pretends the computer is broken and takes it with him, realizing that was the source of her hurt and decision to divorce.

He tries to schmooze her at breakfast but she loftily told him she has plans. Actually, she went to the grandparent’s estate to give them gifts from Busan: a bamboo back scratcher for the Dictator, and a fake pearl pin for Grandmother. Both are not impressed, and he explains that her goal should be to have a baby, spend her husband’s money and keep him happy. Grandmother backs him up; Hye-chan is not impressed.

She heads over to her movie class and meets up with Kim Noon. His present from Busan is a couple of beach shells, which he careful wraps up in a handkerchief and they share a smile.

After class, she meets up with her sister at the apartment, where Bong-kyu is secretly practice to become a chef. Hye-chan gives out her Busa gifts and asks her younger sister for her old school uniform; she needs it for a project she is doing for her movie-making class. Hye-won counters that doing movie work caused problems before, but she clams up when Hye-chan asked her for more info.

Manager Ahn and Sang-young are meeting with Ji-young’s aunt regarding the movie she is producing. Sang-young is not happy when he is told Ji-young will be the female lead.

Hye-chan is at the house when Ji-young rings the front door. She sits down for a serious talk and explains that Hye-chan’s behavior is causing problems for Sang-young. She admits to liking him, but backpedals to imply it’s the same as any other female fan. Nevertheless, Hye-chan overreacts with aiego when Sang-young comes home, only to drop it like a hot potato after Ji-Young leaves.

Grandfather is trying out his backscratcher and hides it when he wife comes in; she casually mentions that a stick can’t replace a hand. They discuss Hye-chan’s odd behavior, and try to get Bong-kyu to give them information on her.

Hye-chan wakes up the next morning late for her first day of filming for her movie project. Stuffing her uniform and camcorder in a backpack, she heads out the door, but Sang-young is awakes and brightens up at the idea of exercising together. She tries a few unenthusiatic before her brilliant idea of outing him to the local gaggle of ahjummas. She slips on her uniform and bolts for the bus, where she is spotted by her grandmother. Sang-young storms into the house, and gets the “she’s gone again!!” gleam in his eye.

At the school, Kim Noon and Hye-chan chase tardy students to ask them their reason for being late. The Stalker Girls follow as well; and Hye-chan ends up forced to stay the entire period in the class as a real student.

After class, Hye-chan interviews the dukkboki halmeoni in front of the high school. Halmeoni states that students are busy doing “other” things at night which tire them out. During the interview, Hye-chan spots the tardy student she filmed previously and follows him, while he tries to avoid her. It appears he’s a delivery driver at night, and she follows him to the local hotel. The Stalker Girls had tagged along too, and take this opportunity to call the police that a high school student in uniform just entered a hotel.

It’s been a rough day on the set for Sang-young, filming car chases and fight scenes all day. Ji-young invites him for late-night sandwiches with the crew, but he just wants to go home. In the car with Manager Ahn, he receives a startling phone call. It’s the police department, and they have Hye-chan in custody for allegedly using a camera and uniform to film porn. Sang-young bails her out and takes her home. He also takes her to task for putting both of them in a bad situation after all he’s tried to do to help her. She tearfully relates the evening’s debacle and breaks down, and the couple have their first honest hug since her memory loss.

She ends up putting plaisters on his back while they both feel the pull of their emotions. When they finish, they are face to face, and Sang-young moves for a kiss. She closes her eyes….and he gets the hiccups. She runs to the kitchen for more pain medication, and Sang-young checks her buzzing cellphone. It’s Kim Noon, in a cute video thanking her for the seashells. Sang-young deletes the video, and when Hye-chan comes back to the living room:

The final flashback has our past couple still recovering in Busan from Bong-man’s fall into the water. She’s setting his pants to dry before the fire, and pulls out a wet, illegible bit of paper. Bong-man had spent hours and a lot of trees for that one note: “Hye-chan, I can’t live without you!”

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